Chapter 35
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Liv and I sit in the Adirondack chairs on the front porch overlooking the lake and sip wine.
Above us, leaves rustle in the tall trees.
The evening sun breaks through the maturing foliage, delivering a pleasant temperature through its rays.
The roar of a motor fills our ears as one of the fishing boats starts its engine.
The man at the hand motor directs it away across the calm water, leaving a V-shaped wake.
“I see why you’re staying here,” Liv says. “It’s more peaceful than Mom and Dad’s.”
“Dad doesn’t want me around.”
“I don’t know what’s up with him,” Liv says. “He’s stressed about Julie for sure, but he’s been stressed for a while.”
“Work?” I ask.
Liv lays her head against the tall back of the Adirondack chair with a sigh. “I don’t know. Before all this happened, he went off about the deer incident.”
I shake my head. “Upset that mom could have been hurt? He’s been warning about deer for as long as I can recall.”
“He seemed mostly upset about his truck.”
“Oh shit. That’s stupid. That relic has to be nearly as old as Julie.”
“Seventeen years, I think,” Liv says. “It’s why Ollie agreed to fix it. But with the age of the model, he’s having issues getting the right parts.”
I change the subject. Honestly, I don’t care about Dad’s truck. “How is Julie? Has she said anything?”
“It’s difficult for her to speak. She’s hoarse from whatever was done to her neck.
She won’t eat much, but she drinks a lot of water.
Annabelle came and talked to her this evening.
I guess Manes is trying to keep the other departments away for as long as possible.
I thought it was cool he sent Annabelle. Who knew he could be sensitive?”
“Annabelle? I saw her out by the McKenna farm this afternoon.”
Liv puts her wine glass on the small table and stares at me. “Why were you out there?”
Pursing my lips, I shrug. “I guess I’m curious. I want to know who did this to her and Marty.”
“Jillian, not only is the Blue Gil Sheriff’s Department on this, but the county sheriff and state police have been called in. I doubt you can do anything that they can’t.”
Clenching my jaw, I stare out at the glistening water. The fisherman’s wake is gone; the resulting waves have long since rippled upon the shoreline.
As Liv tells me about Julie’s interview, I ponder the waves. Created by a small motor, they continued until gone.
Was Craig’s death the motor, the creation of the waves that claimed Marty and almost claimed Julie?
According to Liv, who learned her information from Mom, Julie doesn’t recall anything beyond the bonfire. She remembers arriving at the party and can name some of the people in attendance: her friends, Austin, and a few older graduates. “She mentioned your neighbor,” Liv adds.
“My neighbor? You mean Keith Gilbert?”
Liv nods. “Julie mentioned him and Mrs. Coach.”
“She said that Serena was there? At the party?”
Liv shrugs. “Julie mentioned that she was with Keith.”
With Keith?
He’d said he was at the party about a hunch. What hunch?
“I had the impression,” I say, unsure how much to divulge. “...that the two of them aren’t close.”
“I had that impression at the funeral too.” Her eyes light up. “Wait, didn’t Ollie mention seeing Mrs. Coach in a picture of the party on Snap Chat?”
I shake my head. “That is such a weird way to refer to her.” Standing, I walk to the railing, turn toward Liv, and lean against it with my wine in hand.
For a moment, I spin the stem. When I look up, Liv’s gaze is on me.
“I mean, let’s say you and Matt get married.
Would you want to be Mrs. Matt or Mrs. Logistics Guy? ”
My sister laughs. “I guess I never thought about it. But hell no.” She takes a drink of her wine. “No matter what you call her, I refuse to feel sorry for Serena Gilbert. She isn’t the victim.”
“Why?”
“She’s been playing the Poor me; my husband is so sexy all the little girls want him since I can remember. Shit, keep him happy and he won’t stray.”
My neck tenses. “You’re saying it’s her fault?” I’m not sure if my change in posture is a response to Liv’s comment or the shock of hearing myself defend Serena Gilbert.
“It is her fault,” Liv says matter-of-factly. “She’s not responsible for what he’s done but for her response.”
I nod, listening to my sister’s reasoning.
“When was the first time he cheated on her?” Liv asks. “What did she do then?”
Mentioning Diana James in Marquette is on the tip of my tongue; however, Liv is on a roll, and her questions are apparently rhetorical.
“When Serena didn’t leave him the first time or at least get angry, she basically handed him a hall pass to do it repeatedly. If Matt even looked, I’d call him out. And he would me.”
“How do you know she didn’t get angry?” I ask.
Liv shrugs. “You’re right. I don’t. I do know that she forgave him time and time again. And we all know he did more than look.”
I turn back to the lake, wondering how many times he cheated, how many women and girls.
The illusion I created that I was someone special and that he cared for me is gone.
Nevertheless, that misconception that we shared something more than physical was part of the reason I came back to Blue Gil when Becky informed me of his death.
Still looking out at the water, I ask, “How many times do you think he did it?”
“Rumors would say a lot.” She pauses. “He’s not the only one to blame.”
I spin back toward my sister.
Her blue eyes are downcast, her lids and lashes flutter. “The girls are also at fault.” She shrugs and looks up with just her eyes. “It’s not like they didn’t know he was married.”
The truth hurts, but now I can see it. The emotion was different when I was that girl. Distance and time add perspective. “No wonder Dad hates me,” I say as I sit back in the chair.
“You weren’t the first or the last.”
Why did I think that Liv didn’t see what was happening six years ago, that she didn’t know her older sister was one of the many? “Did Mom tell you?”
“No one had to tell me. Jeez, Jillian. We lived in the same house.”
“When you say I wasn’t the first, you mean the girl in Marquette?”
“What girl in Marquette?” Liv shakes her head. “I don’t know anything about a girl in Marquette.”
“Then who—”
We both still at the sound of the squeaking back-screen door.
Alarm causes me to stand. The back door is closed and the view through the window is the same. “That’s weird.”
“Your neighbor?” she asks.
“Maybe. He might have wanted to talk to me and saw you were here.” I answer her other question, opting to keep the girl’s name out of it.
“Keith told me there was an incident in Marquette. It’s why Craig left the teaching job up there.
He was forced out. Someone here on the search-and-screen committee found out and tried to stop his hire. Being married saved his position.”
Liv shakes her head. “I didn’t know about that. Mom was on that committee, wasn’t she?”
“She was.”
She takes another drink of her wine. “I must have missed the attraction-to-Craig Gilbert gene.”
“There’s a gene?”
“Julie and her friends were all infatuated, too.”
“Infatuated?”
“For them, I think it was different...an easy mark.”
“What does that mean?”
Liv looks momentarily into her glass. “I tried to understand, but I didn’t get straight answers.”
I’m not sure what my sister is saying.
Did one of these girls initiate the connection—show an interest in him? Then I remember what Becky said the other evening. “Becky said that some of the senior girls had a thing for married men.”
“This town seriously produces stupid people,” Liv says.
“It’s true.”
Leaving her wine glass on the table, Liv stands and walks to the railing. Sighing, she leans on her elbows and looks out at the lake. “Yes and no. Like I said, from what I’ve pieced together, it’s different with them—Julie’s harem. They’re different.”
“I realize how naive it sounds,” I confess, “but when I...with Craig, I thought it was love. He was new here, and all the girls thought he was so sexy. He was older, but not that much. When he noticed me, really noticed, I fell. It was forbidden, secretive, and well, I fell.” I lift my head to the lake.
“Like the fish, I fell hook, line, and sinker. I thought he meant all the things he said. I thought I was special.”
“I don’t think that’s the way it is for Julie and her friends.” Liv looks over at me. “I believe Julie loved Austin, or she thought she did. But her friends all broke up with their boyfriends either last summer or the beginning of their senior year.”
“Marty was dating someone too?”
“Before last summer, yeah. He was a friend of Austin’s. I don’t remember his name.”
“They all broke up? Wait, Austin said he broke up with Julie.”
“In hindsight, I don’t think Julie was into it at first.”
“Into what?”